2001-2002 HERI Faculty Survey

This report describes the results of the UND Faculty Survey completed in 2001-2002 by faculty who taught in the Fall of 2001. It provides information on faculty characteristics, teaching and other activities, workload, job satisfaction and sources of stress, as well as faculty perceptions about the institution, their professional goals and goals for undergraduate students, and their views on higher education issues. This report includes only full-time undergraduate (FTUG) faculty responses in comparison with responses of FTUG faculty in samples from other four-year public university respondents unless otherwise stated.

Findings:

A total of 243 faculty, 139 (57%) male and 104 (43%) female, participated in the survey. Among them, 103 male (58%) and 75 female (42%) were classified as FTUG faculty.

The majority of respondents held the rank of associate professor. The gender effect is more pronounced at the professor and the lecturer/instructor levels.

Forty-eight percent of the FTUG faculty are tenured. Sixty-two percent of them indicated tenure is essential in attracting the best minds to academe.

Sixty-three percent of the FTUG faculty earned doctorate or the highest professional degrees.

FTUG faculty were primarily (88% of males, 86% of females) in age range 30 to 59 years.

The percentage of FTUG faculty who have been at UND for over 18 years was much lower than the national sample while the percentage of FTUG faculty who have been at UND for seven years or less was much higher than their national counterparts.

Teaching was the principal activity for the majority of the FTUG faculty (91%).

FTUG faculty stated greater interest in teaching than the national average. Only 13 percent of FTUG faculty report that their primary interests are either in research or leaning toward research.

Intellectual challenge, intellectual freedom, and freedom to pursue interests were the three most frequently chosen reasons for why FTUG faculty chose an academic career.

Colleagues, institutional emphasis on teaching, other personal/family consideration were the most important three reasons why FTUG faculty chose to work for UND.

FTUG faculty at UND were more likely than their national peers to teach an ethnic studies course, teach a service learning coursework, participate in teaching enhancement workshop, and teach a course exclusively through the internet.

FTUG female faculty were more likely than male faculty to use the following instructional methods in classes: class discussion, cooperative learning, experiential learning or field studies, group projects, independent projects, multiple drafts of written work, readings on racial and ethnic issues, readings on women and gender issues, student-developed activities, student-selected topics for course content, and community service as part of coursework.

FTUG female faculty were more likely than their male peers to use the following evaluation methods in classes: student presentations, term/research papers, and student evaluations of each other's work.

In the past two years, 66 percent of the male and 56 percent of female FTUG faculty published.

Time constraints, lack of personal time, institutional procedures, managing household responsibilities, and keeping up with information technology have been identified as the top five sources of stress.

To promote the intellectual development of students was rated as the highest institutional priority.

Thirty-three percent of the FTUG faculty have received at least one firm job offer in the last 2 years and 38 percent considered leaving the academic field for other jobs. However, 44 percent of FTUG faculty indicated their strong desires to be college professors.

The overall job satisfaction rate of FTUG faculty is 73 percent (75% of males and 70% of females).